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Alix Generous is a young woman with a million and one ideas — she’s done award-winning science, helped develop new technology and tells a darn good joke (you’ll see). She has Asperger’s, a form of autistic spectrum disorder that can impair the basic social skills required for communication, and she’s worked hard for years to learn how to share her thoughts with the world. In this funny, personal talk, she shares her story — and her vision for tools to help more people communicate their big ideas.

In 1938, an Austrian pediatrician named Hans Asperger gave the first public talk on autism in history. Asperger was speaking to an audience of Nazis, and he feared that his patients — children who fell onto what we now call the autism spectrum — were in danger of being sent to Nazi extermination camps.

As Asperger spoke, he highlighted his "most promising" patients, a notion that would stick with the autistic spectrum for decades to come.

"That is where the idea of so-called high-functioning versus low-functioning autistic people comes from really — it comes from Asperger’s attempt to save the lives of the children in his clinic," science writer Steve Silberman tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross.

Silberman chronicles the history of autism and examines some of the myths surrounding our current understanding of the condition in his new book, NeuroTribes. Along the way, he revisits Asperger’s calculated efforts to save his patients.

Silberman shies away from using the terms high-functioning and low-functioning, because "both of those terms can be off base," he says. But he praises Asperger’s courage in speaking to the Nazis. "I would literally weep while I was writing that chapter," he says.

NeuroTribes also explores how a 1987 expansion of the medical definition of autism (which was previously much narrower and led to less frequent diagnoses) contributed to the perception that there was an autism epidemic.

Looking ahead, Silberman says that while much of today’s autism research focuses on finding a cause for the condition, society might be better served if some of the research funds were directed instead toward helping people live with autism. "I think that society really needs to do a bit of soul-searching about how we’re dealing with autism," he says. "We need to get over our obsession with causes, because we’ve been researching the cause of schizophrenia for decades and we still don’t know what causes schizophrenia exactly."

In this episode of “Ask a Mormon Sex Therapist”, Laurel and Brian talk with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife on the topics of teaching young women about the Law of Chastity and the problem of pornography. CONTENT WARNING!!! During the pornography discussion we talk about demeaning pornography, and sex trafficking.

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is a psychotherapist who focuses on issues surrounding female sexuality and feminism within the LDS framework. She holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology from Boston College where she wrote her dissertation on LDS women and sexuality. She has taught college-level classes on human sexuality and currently has a private therapy practice in Chicago. In her private practice, she primarily works with LDS couples on sexuality and relationship issues. She also teaches online courses to LDS couples on these issues. She is married, has three kids, and is an active member of the LDS church.

With Merlin on sabbatical, Dan is joined by John Roderick to discuss his recent visit to Africa, the military, corporate friends, strategic thinking, the Internet, digital books and albums, echoes, playmobil figures, measuring your arms, and more.

No, your eyes don’t deceive you, here’s the long awaited second episode of The 1Password Show, sorry it’s taken so long to release but as I’m sure you’ve read we’ve been rather busy recently with making 1Password even more awesome. Your hosts, Stu & Chris, get up close and personal with our good friend Merlin Mann about all things 1Password, including some of Merlin’s favourite features of 1Password and a few great tips along the way.

Acclaimed science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling will again deliver the Closing Remarks at SXSW Interactive. Sterling’s state-of-the-industry, state-of-the-world rants are one of the true highlights of the event, so don’t miss the 2013 version.